Electronic Theses and Dissertations: The bepress Approach Ben Hermalin Interim Dean, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley & Co-Founder, bepress

What are the advantages to ETD? Facilitate collaboration over distance Automate record keeping and archiving Lower costs of cataloging and distribution Increase access Facilitate “branding” of departments & universities

gradually replace the costly paper copies of dissertations that the library now keeps with a digital repository library and university retain archive of its intellectual output instantaneous posting of ETD immediately upon acceptance in a variety of outlets (the department’s site, the university’s repository, the library catalog, and OAI-crawling services) interested parties may receive automatic notification of newly published dissertations ability to accept and store non-traditional dissertation materials (e.g., audio, video, data sets, programs) Why Automate the ETD Process?

Graduate Division – streamline interaction among students and committee members, run reports and analyses, and instantly publish the dissertation Committee Members – simplify coordination among members, facilitates working with students from a far, maintains records Students – easily disseminate new versions, centralize feedback, and publish non-traditional materials (e.g., audio, video, data sets, programs). Library – automatically receive an OAI-compliant electronic version of the dissertation that can be archived and printed on demand Department Head – publish to the department’s website, highlighting research produced within its unit University – collect and display all dissertations produced within the university, highlighting the depth and breadth of research produced within its units Who Benefits from Automating the Dissertation Process?

Basic ETD Workflow 1. student produces thesis or dissertation 2. dissertation committee members offer comments, student revises, repeat 3. dissertation is approved and electronically published under department and/or university imprint

The bepress Model: Guiding Principles tools can be created to ease the flow of scholarly communication these tools can be placed in the hands of academics (via publications disseminated under the bepress imprint) these tools can be placed in the hands of the academy (via partnership agreements such as the bepress/CDL model)

The bepress engine: EdiKit Easy to Use no special technical expertise required no software to install or master Flexible accommodates a variety of publication types workflow is easily customized Comprehensive an end-to-end solution covering submission, processing, publishing, and PR

students engages the system by creating an account and uploading metadata and first draft supporting materials, annotations, and revisions are handled in the same manner as the submission is initially loaded and later revised, the bepress system sends automatic notices to relevant administrators and committee members graduate division may configure the system’s workflow and user privileges Improving the Dissertation Process

Committee members and administrators “manage” the submission via EdiKit Assignment of reviewers, comments on drafts, correspondence, and final sign-off are all handled through the EdiKit view Improving the Dissertation Process (cont’d)

upon approval, ETD may be published instantaneously copies may be transmitted to the library (for archiving) and UMI ETD is independently discoverable via the department’s site, the university’s repository, the library catalog, and OAI-crawling services web pages are automatically updated with no HTML intervention necessary The Finished Product

functionality of peer-reviewed journal system provides foundation for dissertation process modules have been developed for working papers, monographs, and collected writings remaining work includes adjustment of labels away from journal- centric terminology workflow customization may remain for individual institutions bepress Technology – Next Steps for ETDs